


Angie's got a problem

by Whowantstoknow259



Series: Everyone is gay, almost nobody dies. [1]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Kinda, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Vaguely implied threats of rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 02:36:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5810257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whowantstoknow259/pseuds/Whowantstoknow259
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU where Angie and Peggy grow up in New York together and have a dynamic like Steve and Bucky. </p><p>Angie had a problem. Not to get a girl wrong, it was a wonderful problem, a problem that made her insides melt, but it was a problem nonetheless. The problem was her best friend, Peggy, no actually Peggy wasn’t a problem, she was great. She was beautiful and direct, honest, incapable of lying even when Peggy wasn’t saying a word. Which was Angie’s problem, because Angie knows what happens to girls who look girls the way Peggy looks at Angie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Angie's got a problem

Angie had a problem. Not to get a girl wrong, it was a wonderful problem, a problem that made her insides melt, but it was a problem nonetheless. The problem was her best friend, Peggy, no actually Peggy wasn’t a problem, she was great. She was beautiful and direct, honest, incapable of lying even when Peggy wasn’t saying a word. Which was Angie’s problem, because Angie knows what happens to girls who look girls the way Peggy looks at Angie.

It’s not talked about because good girls do not talk about perversions but there are rumors about other girls, older women, boys, and men who just were not quite right, and the bad way that they ended up. The last thing that Angie ever wanted for Peggy was for the rumors to be started about the way that Peggy looks at Angie when she thinks no one is looking, or the way that Angie sometimes looks back when she knows no one is looking. So Angie has a problem, and it’s only getting worse since she and Peggy graduated and moved in together. 

-

It’s been them against the world since Angie could remember, no actually that’s not true, the world does not know it has a problem with Angie, she’s got a way about her, a dimpled smile and a secretly iron will that like water always finds the path of least resistance to take her where she wants to go. Peggy, on the other hand, will run right up, step on life’s toes, and sock life right in the jaw, it’s kinda what Angie loves about her, that and her dark eyes that for the life of them cannot hide Peggy’s eternal anger at the world. Angie’s always got Peggy’s back, coming up behind her with a smile and snappy words and just enough charm to let the two of them slide out of whatever trouble Pegs has started. 

They’re not opposites, not really, for all Angie’s blue eyed blonde complexion and Peggy’s warm brown eyes and matching hair. Peggy doesn’t play well with others while Angie can make strangers in the street believe they are the best of friends, but that’s just surface stuff. Stubborn backbones, tempers, and the eternal feeling of being outsiders to everyone but each other. The only real difference is just Peggy can’t lie, cannot lie to save her soul, and Angie can and does all the time to save both herself and Peggy. 

Angie was born two days after and two floors down from Peggy in the same Brooklyn tenement building. Angie was her mother’s third child, Peggy was her mother’s first, Alma Martinelli took Amanda Carter under her wings, because as Alma says to her husband ‘the Carters ain’t got nobody on this side of the pond, and how’s a girl gonna go into motherhood without any of her female relatives around.’ The two girls grew up together, always just two floors apart, the way their mothers tell it, the two of them didn’t have any choice but to be friends but Angie knows she had choice, more than just one even, lots of them, and she always chose Peggy. 

One of the first, one moment that defined their friendship, was when they were seven, Angie was playing marbles with the other children, the bright shiny glass treasures that passed hands like currency on the playground. Angie was alright, she won some and lost some, but she always kept her ten favorites, the ten prettiest, in a box under her bed. Peggy had been sitting to the side, watching, crouching back on her heels as Angie took turns shooting. Angie was originally planning missing mostly, because she knew the blue marbles in play were Lucy’s favorite and she was only playing with them because Lucy was bad at marbles and kept losing her other ones. The other girls started talking about Peggy’s ripped tights, her dirtied hands, really laying into Peggy. Before Angie could tell them to knock it off, Peggy got up and tore off to the other side of the playground. Honestly it was dramatic, if Peggy had started firing back, the other girls would have let her be, but Peggy was always better with a quick fist than a quick word even then. Angie didn’t immediately follow her, instead she played the best game of marbles she had ever, won all the girls’ marbles and walked off instead of letting them win them back. She sat down next to Peggy and gave her half (“because I can’t play by myself”) and played marbles with her until recess was over. The next time Peggy came over, Angie gave her her second prettiest marble, a whorling blue and black one that looked like the night sky, her prettiest a brown and amber cat’s eye was something Angie was never going to give up. Angie had her older cousin Ralphie drill hole it the brown marble when she was thirteen, she strung it on a chain and wore it around her neck. That the marble was the same brown and amber warmth of Peggy’s eyes was something she would never ever say out loud.

Choices like that came up often, because quite honestly Peggy did not want to play by the rules that life gave her. But then again Peggy made choices of her own, when Nick from the fifth grade spit at Angie, Peggy tripped him and kicked him the stomach. When Angie got called a bad bad word because of her Italian last name by Carol, Peggy tied her hair into knots then dumped glue over her head. If Angie had Peggy’s back then it could be said that Peggy had Angie’s twice as loud and three times as hard.

They played games together, went to school together, did everything together, grew up close as sisters as best girlfriends do, but they weren’t sisters. Never once in her life did Angie ever wish Peggy was her sister, and for reasons she couldn’t verbalize it always made her a bit uncomfortable when people made that comparison. Then they turned thirteen and their other friends started talking about boys, so Angie started talking about boys and Peggy never really joined in but she laughed and sat on the edge of slumber parties with their friends. Angie didn’t think anyone but her noticed. They played the slumber party games that everyone plays, practicing kissing with their fists, stiff as a feather light as a board, truth or dare. One time Peggy was dared to give one of them a kiss, and she puts the normal grousing, and for some reason Angie’s chest is so tight, then Peggy leans over and gives Angie a joking theatrical kiss and the other girls are laughing like it’s a great joke so Angie laughs too. Angie’s the only who notices Peggy isn’t laughing, just smiling a half smile, her lips parted, she’s breathing hard like maybe her chest was as tight as Angie’s. Angie shoots down all future attempts to play truth or dare at her friends slumber parts.

Then they turned seventeen, Angie had begun to realize another reason the world would be against them. It wasn’t something that they talked about, or that was even talked about at school because nothing about it was something that good girls did. But without them even talking about it had started to become something more than joke kisses at slumber parties. 

Friday nights the Martinelli’s made their kids get scarce so they could have the small apartment to themselves, Angie always went to Peggy’s. The two of them had been sharing each other’s small beds since before they could remember, it wasn’t unusual. The unusual thing had happened earlier that Monday, when the two of them were walking to school. Angie didn’t know if Peggy saw it but Angie had, the two women were in a car, and one of them had leaned over a brushed her lips against the lips of the other woman. It was a chaste kiss, and Angie had only gotten a split second glance as the car zoomed by, and Angie had seen women kiss each other hello and goodbye all the time. But this was like none of those times, because even knowing that there were women out there who weren’t right like Angie wasn’t, the knowledge was nothing next to seeing it. The kiss was burned into Angie’s head, it was all she could think about, and then all she could think about was Peggy’s lips and the kiss at the slumber party. Then all Angie could think about was if Peggy had seen the kiss and if it was all that Peggy could think about too. But she didn’t say anything then, and she didn’t say anything as she slipped into bed next to her best friend. 

It set Angie on fire, they were just getting big enough that if they didn’t sleep on their sides their arms and hand brushed, sometimes their legs would end up tangled, before Monday Angie had liked that. She liked that Peggy grabbed her hand before they went to sleep and sometimes that they woke up tangled in each other. Well she still liked it but it made her heart pound so bad it hurt in her chest, it made it hard for her to breath, to relax enough to sleep. She turned on her side, facing the wall, away from Peggy, trying to think about anything else besides the creeping warmth of sharing a bed, and why all of a sudden that warmth feels warmer than it did last week, feels better than it did last week, why Angie wants it even more than she did last week. Time ticks by slowly and Angie cannot calm down, cannot stop thinking, it’s torture and for some reason she never wants it to end, never wants to get up from this spot in her best friends bed, never wants to leave Peggy’s side. When Peggy throws her arm over Angie’s waist Angie nearly jumps out of her skin. Peggy scoots in real close so that Angie can feel her firm softness all along her back, Peggy’s warm breath on Angie’s neck that makes her want to squirm all the way down to her toes. 

“Can’t sleep either?” Peggy whispers and Angie can almost feel the lips inches from her ear. Angie’s mouth is almost too dry to respond, she doesn’t know why suddenly this closeness, that is nothing new, feels like it’s burning her from the inside out.

“No, you're breathing to loud.” The feeling of Peggy curved around her back is unbearable, Angie turns clumsily over and that’s a mistake, because now not only is she in Peggy’s arms but their lips are inches apart and all that Angie can think about is the kiss.

“You’ll never guess what I found,” Peggy’s eyes are bright and her smile is wicked, and whatever she found Angie just knows it’s going to be trouble. “Someone dropped it in the stairwell and I found it yesterday.”

She rolls over taking her warmth and the arm slung round Angie with her, and for all being that close was torture, having her scoot away is like having someone take something precious from Angie. Peggy turns on the bedside lamp and leans over the side of the bed, fishing for something before lying down and scooting back in close. Their knees are pressed together but she doesn’t put her arm back around Angie, she doesn’t get back in so close. Instead she holds up a tattered homebound book, her faces is shadowed because her back is to the lamp but her grin is almost sinful.

“It’s a tijuana bible!” Peggy squeaks “It’s filthy!’ 

Angie can’t help the nervous giggle, she knows about bibles, she’s got three brothers and seven boy cousins, how could she not know. The priest brought up dirty books during catechism says that their sinful, gateways to sins of the flesh, which means sex. She’s never actually seen one before. Angie sits up as Peggy hands it over, Peggy is giggling, a nervous giggle like Angie’s, what they’re doing would get their hides tanned by any one of their parents. Good girls do not look at sex books. 

They flip through it, it’s cartoons, most of the book isn’t interesting outside of its scandalous sordid filthiness. But there are three pages that make both Angie and Peggy linger, and makes the two girls pause, on the page a french maid who is wearing nothing but feathers from the waist down comes across the kitchen girl who is pulling up her skirts and messing with herself. The next page shows the maid with her arm snaked around the kitchen girl, hand rubbing between her legs, telling her that she would show her how to feel good, the final page is the kitchen girl licking between the maid’s legs. It’s like a kiss, it makes Angie’s brain buzz. They both laugh a little about the book, but there’s something else in the room that makes it hard to talk, or think, or to find very much funny, so they shut off the light and lay back down, on their sides, back to back and try to go back to sleep.

It was supposed to be a joke, at least that’s what she tells herself, Angie turns over a puts her arm around Peggy’s waist, resting her hand on her stomach, pulling herself flush with Peggy’s back. 

“Let me show you to feel good.” Angie whispered in a exaggerated french accent. 

She was going to pull away, she was really going to, but Peggy put her hand on top of Angie’s and slowly slid their hands down her stomach. Angie was holding her breath, no she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t hear anything over the pounding of her heart, but she could Peggy’s own breath coming roughly rising unevenly against her chest. Angie didn’t know what she was doing, but she kept sliding her fingers down until she reached between Peggy’s legs. Peggy’s was wearing her nightgown and a pair of panties, but Angie pressed down on the fabric rubbing softly at first. The sensation was odd, she could feel the friction from the fabric then it began to roll smoothly and a dampness leaked through the thin cotton materials. Angie wasn’t sure she was doing it right until she moved her fingers around about, still rubbing and suddenly Peggy whimpered and arched her back, grinding her hips back into Angie, her head pressing against Angie’s lips. Angie felt tingling hot wetness between her own legs, could only smell Peggy, could only feel Peggy. The whole world was reduced to herself and her best friend in the tiny bed, to Peggy’s hair on her lips, to her fingers between her best friend’s legs and burning rightness of it all. She rubbed until her fingers and Peggy, shaking, stopped her. 

Angie rolled onto her back, still couldn’t catch her breath, she was aching down there, feeling the urge to move or do something she didn’t quite know what though. Peggy rolled over propping herself up with an elbow and a with shy flushed smile slide her fingers between Angie’s legs, rubbing until she found the spot that made Angie gasp and arch off the bed. This was better, not because it was Angie getting the pleasure, but because she could see Peggy’s face, her bright red cheeks, overly bright brown eyes, and most of all her half smile, lips open and panting and red and all Angie could think about was Peggy’s fingers and Peggy’s lips. As if reading her mind Peggy leaned over and kissed her, chaste and closed mouthed and then not chaste and wet and rough and Angie couldn’t help but moan in her mouth. She didn’t know what the build up was towards, but the want and the sensation was becoming steadily more and more unbearable until she felt it, the overwhelming pleasure and complete weakness, that poured over her in waves.

She stopped Peggy’s fingers and then they just kissed for a bit, again and again until Angie could feel the build up in the pit of her stomach, but they just laid down, facing each other, arms wrapped tight around one another. It was the best sleep that Angie could ever remember. She woke up still locked tight in Peggy’s embrace, their legs tangled together and Peggy’s lips on her collar bone. She woke up to Peggy’s mother thumping the door and calling the girls for breakfast. She woke up to panic, because if they had gotten caught, if they got caught she would never be allowed to see Peggy again. And if they continued they’d be caught because Peggy can’t lie with her eyes. She was already so protective, so defiant, so obviously in love with Angie even without being...being…

..Best girls…?

..Lovers…? 

Peggy would never be able to keep this between them. Angie didn’t even know what would happen, but she did know that girls that weren’t right got fixed one way or another and she could never ever let that happen to Peggy. So she waited until Peggy woke up, pulled her hands out of Peggy’s grasp even as Peggy kissed her palms and smile such an uncomplicated smile that it was gonna break Angie’s heart. Then she grabbed her best friend by the shoulders like she always did when she was serious, ducked her head so she was eye to eye with the shorter girl and explained why they could never do that again, never talk about it again, and why it could never happen again even if both of them wanted it more than anything in the world. Peggy surprisingly smiled a gentle smile and agreed, but her eyes told the truth. A truth that maybe they couldn’t say but that made Angie’s knees weak and for the first time made her curse the day she was born a girl or that Peggy was born a girl, because if they were different this would be different. 

Things after that were more or less the same, except for Peggy wasn’t good at lying with her eyes, wasn’t good at looking at her like they were just friends, wasn’t good keeping her hands off of Angie’s thighs when they went to the movies. Angie tried not to return any of it, except in the dark, during sleepovers, where once a week she pour everything shouldn’t and couldn’t say through her fingers and her lips, then fell asleep in Peggy’s arms. But they didn’t talk about it. They were rapidly approaching their eighteenth birthdays, graduation, college for Peggy and secretary school for Angie. Angie had part time job at the automat and Peggy cleaned on the weekends for a telephone operator. Peggy wanted to get an apartment, just the two of them closer the women’s college, so it’d be safer walking home at night, and their parents agreed. 

-

So here was Angie with the problem, high school girlfriends were close, that was forgivable, but two single girls, living alone, needed to be above reproach and god Peggy’s dark eyes could bring down all sorts of trouble on them. So Angie told Peggy that now that they were eighteen, now that they were on their own, they needed steady beau’s. It’s what girls did. Guy’s to take them out dancing and to the movies. She gave every reason but the real one, guys to throw off the scent. Peggy just smirked and said ‘right’ and then left for work. But Angie was serious, was gonna get a guy, go steady with him, she could do it. She was a much better liar than Peggy Carter.

Angie chose James Barnes for a number a reasons, he had a reputation for being a nice guy, he had a reputation for not wanting to get too serious with his girls, he looked a bit like Peggy if you squinted, but mostly because of Steve, James’ best friend. She chose him because she saw the way the two of them looked at each other when they came into the automat once a week late at night on payday to splurge on a shared piece of pie. Angie suspected they might be in the market for girls to throw off the scent as well. Plus either way it’s not like she had to worry about James falling in love with her. 

When she handed him her address and said that he could pick her up on Saturday at 5 pm, James’ eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hairline, and he looked a tiny bit angry, which should could understand, maybe Fridays were special to him and Steve like they were to her and Peggy, or maybe it was just her forwardness, but when else would she see James? She couldn’t wait around forever for him to ask her because if he was gonna he would have months ago. She smoothed it over when she looked at Steve and smiled her warm dimpled grin. Told him about her shy friend Peggy, maybe he’d like to come too, could be a double date. James told her to call him Bucky, and that he and Steve would pick them up at 4 pm for the movies.

~

Bucky and Steve picked the girls up at 4 pm to take them to the movies. Bucky was vaguely unsettled with the directness and forwardness of Angie asking not just him but also Steve out. But was willing to go with it because he liked her, he liked her because every time he and Steve came into the diner she was equally kind and attentive to them both. Bucky hoped her friend was as nice to Stevie as Angie was, because otherwise this was a waste of time. His stomach clenched when he saw Peggy’s sour face when they first came down, but it was baseless worry, because the girl Peggy really did make an effort and by the time they were halfway to the theater Peggy and Steve were three steps ahead chattering about the political climate in Europe. 

It was complete reversal of their normal double dates, Peggy and Steve getting on grand while Angie was quiet, walking alongside Bucky as if she wasn’t the one who had asked him out. While making half-hearted conversation she’d glance at her friend and then frown and the conversation would falter.

“You know for being the only girl to ever ask me out first, you’re pretty quiet this evening.” Bucky said, slowing them down a half step to let the other slip just out of earshot.

“Oh” she gave a shaky half laugh and her dimples flashed half-heartedly, “It’s just me and Peggy had a real bad argument just before you came to get us. Sorry not really setting the mood for a date.”

Bucky’s lips pulled flat, “About her taking out Steve?”

“Yes but not in the way you think. It’s got nothing to do with Steve personally, she doesn’t want to go out, but she needs to. It’s why I asked you, you and Steve are such good friends and she and I are such good friends I thought it’d be nice. But now she’s mad at me.” 

“At least she’s polite I guess.” The words tasted bitter in Bucky’s mouth, Stevie needed someone who was more than just coerced into going with him, he needed someone who saw him for what he was, who saw him as special. 

~

This was a disaster, this was Peggy’s fault. The things she had said to Angie before the fellas had arrived, half whispered so as the neighbors wouldn’t hear through the paper thin walls. Then she skips on happily with Steve, getting on so famously that Angie felt green with jealous despite this being her own idea. Leaving Angie so upset that she’s now upset her own date who has gone all blank faced.

“She’s really not,” trying to repair the damage because the source of his unhappiness seems to rest with Peggy not wanting to date Steve.

“Beg pardon?”

“She’s really not polite, if she’s getting along it’s because she’s getting along with him. She may have ruined my night but at least I think she is really having a good time with Steve.” All true, except leaving out the possible motivation of faking a good time to make Angie miserable.

Because Peggy would do that, if she was angry enough. But then again she’s a terrible liar and also has an overdeveloped sense of fairness, so she probably really was having a grand time. 

“Well then don’t let her get to you, if she’s having a good time then you did what was best for her, and that’s what best friends are for.” 

They get to the theater and Peggy makes sure that she and Angie are sitting on either side of the guys which Angie doesn’t like but can’t say because it would be odd. Perks of double dates was sitting in the middle pretending she was on a date only with Peggy. Bucky slings his arm around Angie and goes in for a kiss and she can’t help herself, she leans back, mad at Peggy or not she wasn’t gonna let Bucky Barnes stick his tongue down her throat in public. He looks at her bemused but doesn’t push the issue. 

The movie was awful, and long, it felt like it should be over but the plot was only halfway through. Angie imperceptibly tried to make eye contact with Peggy only to catch a glimpse of what Bucky Barnes was doing to Steve Rogers in public. Seems like Angie wasn’t the only one who thought the perks of double dates was sitting in the middle pretending. Worse Bucky was throwing a furtive glance in her direction at exact moment she saw, and from his stiff shoulders and her stiff shoulders and red flush it was impossibly obvious and impossibly awkward. 

She whispered a hurried lie about having to go to the bathroom and shot out of her seat, out of the theater. The hallway was empty but still seemed overly warm. Only a few seconds after she left she heard the door open and shut and Bucky was in the hallway looking threatening and embarrassed all at once. They just looked at each other for a few seconds then the door opened and shut a second time with Steve and beat behind him a third time as Peggy entered the hall. 

“Bucky what’s going on” Steve asked looking worriedly from Angie to Bucky. Angie knew he probably understood the gist of what had happened. 

Bucky cleared his throat, “Nothing, I ah, just wanted to talk to Angie in private.” 

But Peggy was looking back and forth from Angie’s mortified face to Bucky’s angry one and stepped in between them.

“The hell you will!”

Angie was almost surprised Peggy didn’t put up her fists.

“Peggy,” Angie said putting her hand on her friend's shoulder, “Peggy it’s not like that.”

“What’s it like then?!”

Bucky scowled even harder at Angie, absurdly Peggy did put up fists, like she was going to punch out a man twice her size just for Angie. Deep breaths, out everything, take a risk. Well not much of a risk considering where exactly Bucky Barnes hands were just a minute ago.

“They’re like us Pegs, that’s what I was trying to tell you before you got so angry at me, that’s why I suggested we all go out in the first place.” 

Peggy’s blinking in surprise, Bucky and Steve are looking confused although Angie sees the comprehension dawn on Steve after a few beats.

Steve licks his lips, “Like you how exactly?” 

“Best friends but you know, more than that.” Peggy answers for Angie, Angie thinks it’s because she thinks that Angie probably doesn’t have the words to describe what they are, which is insulting because Angie could probably do a damn sight better than ‘best friends but more’ despite all of that also being true.

“Steve and I aren’t a couple of queers!” Bucky exclaimed, although hushed, they were still in public, this was not the best place for this conversation. 

Steve shot a look at Bucky and Angie couldn’t stop the quip “Seemed pretty queer from where I was sitting” which also earned her a look from Steve, but Angie was rankled by the judgement from a man who just had his hand on his friends cock. 

“Listen,” Peggy said with a sigh, putting her hands on her hips like she did when she was exasperated “We need to either go back inside and finish the movie or we need to go somewhere more private if we’re gonna talk about this.” 

“Bucks and my place, we can talk there.” Steve suggest, Peggy nodded but Angie, who was always so careful, who knew what could happened to fix girls who loved girls heard alarm bells go off. These men knew their secret and could not be trusted, she couldn’t risk it, couldn’t risk Peggy.

“No, we’ll have this conversation in public or not at all!” Angie snapped. 

Bucky looked her over, and in his face she saw recognition, the recognition of having to be the responsible one, being the one to have to guard both their lover and the deep secret of that love. He nodded.

“Tomorrow, if you can, Beech street park, quiet, private but it’s visible we can talk there.” He offered, all trace of anger gone from his face. “We’ll walk you girls home if that’s alright.” 

Later on, when Angie and Peggy are back home, tucked into their bed, arms around each other tightly, Peggy began to giggle about it all.

“Did he really have his hands down his pants, my goodness Angie, how did you even know?”

“Well it was pretty obvious, there’s no other reason for him to be making those motions on his friend’s crotch.” 

“No,” Peggy chuckled, “How did you know that they were like use, not right.”

“We’re right Pegs, how could we be wrong and have this feel the way it does?”

“You know what I mean love.”

“It’s in Bucky’s eyes, he’s got eyes like yours.”

“My eyes are brown, not blue.”

“It’s the love you dolt, you look at me and anyone who wants to can see how much you love me, Bucky’s eyes are the same when he looks at Steve, it’s written on his face for the world to see. That’s how I knew.”


End file.
